Honouring the Ancient Fallen

Submitted by: Steadfast news correspondent, 10th Oct 09

These re-enactors were the Warriors of the White Dragon who kindly formed the guard of honour

In 1066 King Harold (arguably the last true English King) died with his men fighting to protect his people from the foreign Norman invaders.

Upon the defeat of the Brave English warriors, William the Conqueror took control of England and subjected the English to misery and slavery. His final words upon his deathbed to a priest mentioned the cruelty he inflicted against the English...

"I treated the native inhabitants of the kingdom with unreasonable severity, cruelly oppressed high and low, unjustly disinherited many, and caused the death of thousands by starvation and war, especially in Yorkshire....In mad fury I descended on the English of the north like a raging lion, and ordered that their homes and crops with all their equipment and furnishings should be burnt at once and their great flocks and herds of sheep and cattle slaughtered everywhere. So I chastised a great multitude of men and women with the lash of starvation and, alas! was the cruel murderer of many thousands, both young and old, of this fair people."
William the Conqueror

Today many people honour the fallen English warriors and their King, Harold, on the Saturday nearest to the 14th October where a ceremony is held in the historical Abbey grounds of the town of Battle at the site of the Haroldstone - the place at which King Harold fell.

During the ceremony the English Companions (the leading academic re-enactment group of the Anglo-Saxon period) read out a speech in modern and old English, wearing full period costume, while a number of attendees lay wreaths upon the Haroldstone.



Wreath laid upon the Haroldstone on behalf of the Steadfast Trust

The Trustees of the Steadfast Trust attended the ceremony, marking the 943 anniversary of the battle, at 1pm and Trustee Mark made and laid a wreath upon the Haroldstone on behalf of the charity.